After killing 1200 (or more) mostly civilian Palestinians, injuring seriously another 900, Israel has declared that its objectives have been achieved. I doubt it. If the idea was to destroy the Hamas leadership, then perhaps temporarily yes. But armed strength and invasion can kill people, not an idea. The idea is more freedom and less oppression for the Palestinian people. After the invasion, the idea will be far far stronger, with more converts to it. Perhaps Israel wanted to crush the Hamas leadership before President Obama took charge. They knew that Bush would support them, so they declared a cease fire on the day that Obama Presidency is being inaugurated !
This was a mistake that in the long term will create even more problems for the survival of the state of Israel. Those pictures of fathers and mothers in anguish over the bodies of their dead children, killed by the Israeli bombs, will stay etched in the minds of the people for years to come.

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12 Responses to “Israel declares cease fire in Gaza”

Israel is doing what it has to survive in the midst of fanatics there. Freedom? More like an agenda to wipe Israel out, given the chance..with Iran openly voicing such desires. Why don’t you guys say anything when Hamas violated the ceasefire by striking rockets into Israel? Israel has done a lot of compromise on Gaza and with that Arafat.

Your analysis about the timing seems about right.
Your observation about armed invasion killing people and not an idea is also spot on.
However, I am unsure what the solution can be. Truly neither side is blameless. Violence begets violence. Both sides forget that.

sounds like “an eye for an eye” is still not understood by many…
…mindful observation, Shekhar,
timing is of the essence, wonder how many are aware of this?
~~~
Looking forward to a great “shift” in energy and consciousness this Tuesday:)

Killing of civilians can never be right. But we also need to understand why Israel did what it did. What other options did it have? The situation does seem like the current Indo-Pak scenario. If we are to launch ‘surgical strikes’ against Pak as most of the people seem to suggest, then would that not cause civilian casualties? But also would it be wrong if we did that to ensure that there is an end to these fanatic organisations that plan terrorist attacks against our country? This is a very difficult problem with no easy solutions. I agree that everytime there is an innocent killed, besides being unacceptable, we are opening up possibilities of more people taking to the guns. I think the only way to get around this problem is to attack the root cause. The idealogy that seeds this poison into the young minds which do not think twice before taking a life. We need the whole world to get on to the same page and then device a common course of action to go about this. The world needs to treat this is a global epidemic (like Racism, polio, AIDS etc)that the whole world has to get together to put an end to. We also need to promote the qualities of compassion, tolerence and mutual respect amongst our children. This is the only way forward if this planet has to survive this century.

Dear Shekhar,
the face of war is always ugly and repulsive and a knee jerk reaction of rage against Israel will be an instinctual response. Israel is in an increasingly desperate situation. They need to protect themselves against terrorist acts and rocket attacks by the Hamas but there is no clean and palatable way of doing it. The killing of innocent people, in the new vernacular of warfare, is considered collateral damage. The Hamas know and willingly accept that premise and thus ruthlessly take advantage of the resulting martyr status the world assigns to their cause.
There is no doubt that Israel has made terrible mistakes when under the Sharon regime a major land grab was conducted. The resulting anger had led to the strengthening of the Hamas and eventually to their election victory. The suffering of the Palestinian people is one of the great tragedies of our time. They have become the pawns of unconscionable leaders in their midst and on the side of Israel to attain their unsavory goals, each for their own perfidious purposes.
It is a fact that the Hamas want the destruction and annihilation of Israel. Nothing short of that goal will do. Their leaders are ruthlessly sending their young suicide bombers into Israel for terribly destructive reasons: to destabilize the region and to create hatred and to tempt Israel into retaliatory strikes. All for dark and incomprehensible motives.
Farid Ghadry, a controversial Arab reform party leader recently had this to say in a news article: “We Arabs must be the ones to stop Hamas and Hizbullah, rather than support their demonic and twisted logic of resisting development, enlightenment, and progress of the region. Even when development and enlightenment stare them in the face, their instinct is to destroy them pretending to safeguard their honor, the mechanics of which supersede all else including a happy life of fulfillment and accomplishments.”
I would not want to be the person who makes decisions in Israel these days.
With kind regards.
Horst

The comments put forth by you (Mr. shekhar) are really appreciable.
According to me Israel has acheived nothing but the wrath of common people around the globe. The most shocking thing was despite UN peace agencies advised / requested Isralie troops to withdraw from unethically butchering innocent civilians, they adamantly continued to show their supremacy by imposing things on poor citizens of Palestine with the help of deadly arms they have developed / gathered all these years after forcefully occupying the land from palestenian.
At this point of time; though; no one is ready to come forth and voice their anger in the correct manner as it has to be done, atleast from some corners it has come (including Mr. Shekhar).
I guess it takes lot of courage to speak against such attrocities which Mr. Shekhar has exhibited in his blog.
Hope to see such things in future too.

The comments put forth by you (Mr. shekhar) are really appreciable.
According to me Israel has acheived nothing but the wrath of common people around the globe. The most shocking thing was despite UN peace agencies advised / requested Isralie troops to withdraw from unethically butchering innocent civilians, they adamantly continued to show their supremacy by imposing things on poor citizens of Palestine with the help of deadly arms they have developed / gathered all these years after forcefully occupying the land from palestenian.
At this point of time; though; no one is ready to come forth and voice their anger in the correct manner as it has to be done, atleast from some corners it has come (including Mr. Shekhar).
I guess it takes lot of courage to speak against such attrocities which Mr. Shekhar has exhibited in his blog.
Hope to see such things in future too.

Hello Sir,
Don’t agree with your perspective..The fire is from both the ends..Why would Hammas fire more than 600 rockets in israel? They very well knew it would not do much of damage,So why did they do that? couldn’t hammas wait for Obama to take office?
They did that as they very well knew what Israel would do..This gives them international exposure..The fact is hammas does not care for its owm people and they beat them up for silly issues..
I am not supporting ISrael here but Hammas is no saint. I also wonder why haven’t you mentioned about the atrocities in darfur where more than 500000 people have been killed but the entire focus in on palestine..I feel its just because Israel is involved..
SO u can do the calculation
500000 vs 1200 people..

Judging by the comments, it appears that most readers here are under the misconception that Israel just ended the occupation of Gaza and never committed any atrocity on the Gazans. For those who care to look into details for truth, you would find that Israel started the killing immediately after their “painful” unilateral disengagement. From the time it ended the occupation, Israel controlled, & still does, Gaza’s import/export, air space, population registry, borders, sea, collects taxes on goods in Gaza (without paying anything in return), peoples movement in & out of Gaza (girls that received scolarships in US Universities were not allowed to leave the open-air prison). In short, people were made to starve and die due to lack of food, medicines, fuel & clean water. Where would these people go to get justice when the whole world just turns a blind eye to their 60+ yrs of genocidal occupation/holocaust. The truce between Hamas & Israel was based on Israel opening gates of Gaza. Israel NEVER did except occasionally. To top this, Israel broke the ceasefire by sending in it’s army because they had an intelligence report of arms smuggling and killed 6 Hamas members on 11/4. If Hamas is bad, what has Israel given the people in West Bank other than frequent land grabs & more killing? Isn’t it interesting that in the US, Israel & India, we expect hawks that will protect the country from terrorism and in Palestine we want to work with moderates that will betray their people and work with those that terrorize them?
Mr. Kapoor, I commend your position on Israel’s barbaric behaviour & agree with your analysis. Israel should be kicked out of the UN because their admission to it was based on it respecting UN Resolution 181 – to this day it continues to violate it and has shown nothing but contempt.

I don’t believe the Falsetinian ProPalganda, even of above Mohideen! Israel never initiated bombing but always responded to Hamas attacks. Israel let food and medicine enter Gaza because humanitarian needs but sure she prefers that all Gazans’ exporting and banking will be made through Egypt. But the Palestinian failed to do so, they prefer to stick to their enemy because it’s worthy and beneficial for the Gazans.
Falsetinian ProPalganda tactics
——————————–
Four weeks after the cessation of Operation Cast Lead, the IDF finally opened its dossier on Palestinian fatalities on Sunday for the first time, and presented to The Jerusalem Post an overview utterly at odds with the Palestinian figures that have hitherto formed the basis for assessing the conflict.
While the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, whose death toll figures have been widely cited, reports that 895 Gaza civilians were killed in the fighting, amounting to more than two-thirds of all fatalities, the IDF figures shown to the Post on Sunday put the civilian death toll at no higher than a third of the total.
The international community had been given a vastly distorted impression of the death toll because of “false reporting” by Hamas, said Col. Moshe Levi, the head of the IDF’s Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), which compiled the IDF figures.
As an example of such distortion, he cited the incident near a UN school in Jabalya on January 6, in which initial Palestinian reports falsely claimed IDF shells had hit the school and killed 40 or more people, many of them civilians.
In fact, he said, 12 Palestinians were killed in the incident – nine Hamas operatives and three noncombatants. Furthermore, as had since been acknowledged by the UN, the IDF was returning fire after coming under attack, and its shells did not hit the school compound.
for more: http://standwithus.org/app/iNews/view_n.asp?ID=823

After visiting this blog for more than a week, and after not seeing any response to my post, I had given up. Today, I suddenly remembered this blog and wondered if more posts were added, and to my surprise I saw one by Abe Bird – it was not surprising to see such an anti-Palestinian and blind pro-Israeli propaganda.
To summarize what Abe had written, he has NOT disputed even ONE of the facts I had presented. But rather indulges in further Israeli/zionist propaganda of his own. The site he mentions is classic case of propaganda. This is an oft-repeated case of a murderous & genocidal criminal conducting his own review of his crimes and absolving himself/herself of the crime he had conducted in broad day light. They will not allow International bodies to conduct the investigation. NEVER. They did the same thing in Deir Yassin, Jenin, Gaza and plenty of other massacres in Palestine. It’s sheer audacity that these zionist Israeli supporters will resort to name calling and further obfuscation. I ask them just what part of Palestine can the Palestinians live in free with the same rights as the Israelis? According to the zionist settlers, NONE, I am sure.